Sales Apprentice

Faurecia•Northville, MI

20h•Onsite

About The Position

Forvia is seeking a year-round Sales Intern for its headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. This is not a traditional Sales Intern position. The intern will join the Commercial Excellence Lab within the Clarion Electronics division, a small team focused on bringing fresh thinking, analytical talent, and new technology into sales operations. The role involves learning how a global automotive business operates from the commercial front line, but goes beyond supporting existing processes. The intern will study work performance, identify improvement opportunities, develop practical solutions, test them, and help implement them. The scope is cross-functional, involving collaboration with Sales, Finance, Engineering, Program Management, Purchasing, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, IT, and other functions. The ideal candidate is curious, an early-career talent eager to understand and constructively challenge a complex global organization, with a strong ability to learn and solve problems rather than a long list of software certifications.

Requirements

Actively pursuing a bachelor’s or master’s degree throughout mathematics, economics, physics, computer science, business, statistics, engineering, or related fields.
Interest in business, customers, technology, and organizations.
Enjoy solving complex problems.
Comfortable working with incomplete or imperfect data.
Communicate complex ideas in a simple and structured way.
Willingness to understand detailed operational work before proposing changes.
Collaborate effectively with people from different functions and backgrounds.
Take ownership and follow ideas through implementation.
Comfortable presenting your work and facilitating discussions.

Nice To Haves

Previous internship or sales experience is not required.
Experience with some of the following is helpful but not required: Excel and data analysis.
Power BI or similar visualization tools.
Python, SQL, or other analytical tools.
Automation tools.
Artificial intelligence applications.
Statistical, financial, or economic analysis.
Manage complexity, manage ambiguity, optimize work processes.

Responsibilities

Participate in recurring sales activities to understand the business, its customers, and its processes (approximately 20-25% of the role).
Observe and map how commercial and cross-functional processes are performed in practice.
Analyze data to identify inefficiencies, delays, inconsistencies, risks, and improvement opportunities.
Challenge existing ways of working with facts, curiosity, and respect for the people involved.
Develop practical tools, models, dashboards, and process improvements to support the successful implementation of new processes.
Explore how AI and other technologies can reduce repetitive work and improve decision quality.
Work with different functions to understand the root causes of commercial and organizational problems.
Test proposed solutions with selected teams or customer accounts.
Measure the impact of improvements and adjust solutions based on feedback.
Prepare and lead workshops to share observations, findings, and recommendations.
Assist teams to make faster and better-informed decisions.
Document lessons and create solutions that can be scaled across the organization.
Reduce the time required to prepare and approve customer quotations.
Improve sales forecasts and opportunity-probability assessments.
Automate recurring reports, meeting preparation, and action tracking.
Improve the quality and usefulness of CRM information.
Conduct customer, competitor, and market research to support business insights.
Identify duplicated work across Excel, email, PowerPoint, and business systems.
Improve pricing, profitability, and commercial-risk visibility.
Strengthen the tracking of customer commitments and commercial recoveries.
Simplify cross-functional handoffs and approval processes.
Apply data and technology to improve customer responsiveness and execution.

Benefits

Opportunities to present findings to commercial and functional leadership.
Practical experience applying data, technology, and structured problem-solving.
A broad understanding of how a complex international organization competes and makes decisions.
Mentorship and feedback from experienced business leaders.
The opportunity to create measurable impact early in your career.
Engaging and dynamic environment.
Opportunities for career development.
Multicultural environment that values diversity and international collaboration.
Learning environment, dedicating tools and resources to ensure we remain at the forefront of mobility.
Access to online and in-person training within FORVIA University.